The Great Doctor
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: Mildred has an unexpected meeting with a woman Miss Cackle introduces as the most important person in the universe
1. An Unexpected Rescue

Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ belongs to the BBC and _Worst Witch_ belongs to Jill Murphy; you know the drill

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: The idea came to me when I realised that these two shows share an actress who plays a crucial role in the lives of the protagonists; it's just a short bit of work, set around 'Hollow Wood' for the staff and students of Cackle's and just after 'Twice Upon a Time' for the Doctor, focusing on the Doctor in particular seeing life in Cackle's, but I hope you'll like the results

The Great Doctor

She'd been a witch for over a year now, and there were still times when Mildred had no idea how she was expected to deal with this new world.

She had hoped that her second year was off to a better start than her first, after she had completed her summer project and managed to get in some practise with her broomstick flying into the bargain, but even if the staff had been very understanding about her role in the building collapse on her first day, it still felt like she hadn't made that much progress since her previous year. She could at least attribute what had happened during that fire drill to her still being partly asleep, and she'd had some hope that Ethel's opinion of her would have improved after she'd helped the other girl deal with that cloning mess, but the way she'd set up that whole thing with the family trees to convince her that Mr Rowan-Webb was her grandfather…

Staring back at the school, Mildred shivered in her cloak, still not sure what had possessed her to go outside at night at a time like this. The best thing she could think of was that her time as a bat had left her with a few nocturnal urges that she was having trouble shaking off, a hopefully shorter-term equivalent of Mr Rowan-Webb's continued habit of leaping around and catching flies with his tongue. She still wasn't sure how she'd convinced herself to get caught up in that 'competition' with Ethel and Felicity in the potions classroom, but even after exhausting most of their available ingredients and being caught by Miss Hardbroom, as well as being 'assigned' to replace the missing ingredients the next, Mildred had spent the last hour finding herself unable to get to sleep.

She appreciated that she could have stopped the competition if she genuinely thought it was a bad idea, but she just didn't _get_ Ethel sometimes; why was the other girl so determined to put her down? She appreciated that the rules of the Witches' Code limited Ethel's options from the beginning, and she could understand the concept of sibling rivalry on an academic level, but Ethel constantly seemed to feel as though she could only do better by making it clear that others weren't as good as her at something. Mildred was never sure if she'd contributed to that or not with her 'mistake' during Selection Day, but if the teachers could forgive her for that mistake, why was it so hard for Ethel to do the same?

Then again, maybe it was just a cultural gap thing or something like that. She knew that she was getting a better handle on magic in general, after her successful summer project with Einstein and her improved flying abilities, but then there were things like Ethel goading her into that potions contest and she felt like Harry Potter after Draco challenged him to that duel in _Stone_ , where she knew there was some stuff she didn't understand about the culture but had no way of knowing who to talk to so she could be sure what to do.

Ever since that time she'd made herself a staff and learned far more about the potential of chanting than she'd expected, she'd privately wondered if there was something else she could do with her magic that might help her improve, but she just didn't _know_ …

Looking up as she heard a faint noise, Mildred was surprised to see a distant orange glow up in the sky. For a moment she assumed that it was just an aeroplane or a helicopter flying lower than usual, but that view quickly shifted when she glimpsed something apparently fall from the glow. It was a long distance away, but her night-vision had been forced to improve from all the months she'd spent in her room with only candles for light, and it didn't take long to realise that someone had fallen from whatever was the source of that glow.

Mildred barely stopped to think, pulling out her broomstick and elongating it back to a useful length- grateful beyond words that she'd been testing Maud's summer project recently- before she hurtled into the sky, gaze fixed on the falling figure. For a few moments, she thought she wasn't going to reach it even as she drew closer to her target, but a final burst of speed allowed her to catch up with the mysterious figure from the sky, Mildred's half-remembered physics courses coming together with her flying lessons to help her adjust her speed so that she dived down to catch the figure as it fell rather than trying to catch them from below.

With the figure 'safely' in front of her, Mildred realised to her surprise that she had just caught a woman, apparently in her mid-thirties, with shoulder-length blonde hair and hazel eyes in a wide smile. Mildred might have taken the woman for a witch who'd fallen from a broom, but her clothes bore no resemblance to the traditional robes, as she instead wore a black velvet frock coat that looked like it had been through a literal war or two, over a black waistcoat and trousers and a low-collared white shirt.

"Hello," the woman smiled at Mildred, as though they'd just bumped into each other in the street rather than Mildred rescuing her from a life-threatening fall. "Lovely to meet you; what's your name?"

"M-Mildred," Mildred replied awkwardly. "Mildred Hubble."

"Mildred Hubble?" the woman replied, looking thoughtful for a moment before smiling broadly once again. "Delighted to meet you, Mildred; I'm the Doctor."

The smile faltered as she glanced back over Mildred's shoulder. "At least I think I am; am I really the Doctor without the box…?"

"Box?" Mildred repeated in confusion, but the only response she received was for the strange woman to collapse over her shoulder. Lost for a better response, as she struggled to keep her broom up with the new weight, Mildred desperately directed the broom towards her tower-bedroom, praying that Miss Cackle wouldn't be too upset about this as she cast a quick spell to remove the glass from her window before she crashed into it. As soon as she'd entered her room, Mildred virtually threw her mysterious new acquaintance onto her bed, wincing as Tabby jumped off the mattress with an indignant yowl.

"Sorry, Tabby!" she whispered apologetically to her cat, who had run to the foot of the bed. Looking up at her voice, Tabby let out a curious meow, but then seemed to calm down as he turned around to leap back onto the bed, 'examining' the strange woman with a curious edge to his purr before he settled down with his head beside the woman's right hand as it lay alongside her, her left now draped on her chest.

Looking at the unconscious woman now lying on her bed, Mildred allowed herself a brief chuckle at the absurdity of it all; she was pondering her place in the magical world barely a few minutes ago, and now she had some strange woman on her bed and no idea what to do about her.

 _Still_ … Mildred mused, glancing at her watch and quickly thinking over her assigned schedule for tomorrow. _Assuming I'm right about when Miss Cackle's available, if I just drop in on her before Miss Mould takes us out, this_ could _work_ …


	2. The Doctor, the Witch and Ohila

Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ belongs to the BBC and _Worst Witch_ belongs to Jill Murphy; you know the drill

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: Reference is made here to events in the Eighth Doctor novels published by the BBC between 1997 and 2005; for anyone wanting more detail on how the events described here fit into what we know of the Time War and related matters, review the story or PM me and I will be happy to explain my reasoning

The Great Doctor

When Mildred walked into Miss Cackle's office the next morning, the young witch hastily dressed to try and present a somewhat-professional look despite her unconventional news, she was immediately struck by how weary Miss Cackle looked. Mildred knew that the school had been dealing with a few issues lately, considering Mrs Hallow's visit during that mess with Ethel's clones and the near-disappearance of the Founding Stone, but the headmistress had seemed like she was coping with them well enough…

"Mildred?" the headmistress said, looking at Mildred with a pointed stare. "Are you aware-?"

"I know it's early, Miss Cackle, but it's… I don't know _what_ it is!" Mildred said urgently; she didn't like to put more burdens on the woman who had put so much on the line to defend her already, but this situation was unconventional enough that she didn't have a choice. "I was outside for a walk this morning and I saw something in the sky, and then I saw someone falling, and I caught them on my broom, but all she said was that she was a doctor and then she passed out and-"

"A doctor fell from the sky?" Miss Cackle cut Mildred off, looking at the young witch with a particularly pointed stare. "Mildred, this is vitally important; did this person say that they were _a_ doctor, or did they introduce themselves as _the_ Doctor?"

"It was…" Mildred began, pausing to think back before she replied. "Actually, it was _the_ Doctor; is that important?"

"Quite likely," Miss Cackle confirmed as she stood up. "Where did you leave the Doctor?"

"In my room…?" Mildred said, wondering at her headmistress's particular choice of words.

"Take me there," Miss Cackle said firmly.

"Of… of course," Mildred nodded, leaving the room with the headmistress close behind her, wondering what had prompted this level of concern from her headmistress. After a few minutes, she had reached the door of her room, opening it to reveal her strange guest lying on her bed, Tabby now awake alongside the unconscious woman, a gentle purr coming from him as he rubbed his head against her left hand where it now draped over the side of the bed.

"Well well well…" Miss Cackle said, smiling as she walked up to the bed. "Still fond of cats, Doctor?"

"Miss Cackle?" Mildred looked curiously at the headmistress as the old woman examined the figure lying on Mildred's bed, the blonde woman apparently still unconscious even if she appeared unharmed. "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" Miss Cackle repeated, looking up at Mildred with a brief smile. "Not _wrong_ , per se, Mildred; it's just that when you said that you had rescued the Doctor, I was expecting…"

"What?" Mildred asked, as the older woman trailed off to look thoughtfully at the woman lying on Mildred's bed, reaching out to gently touch the unconscious figure's forehead.

"Nothing," Miss Cackle said, waving a dismissive hand as she turned away from the figure, nodding in satisfaction. "This is the Doctor I believed it was, which means, Mildred Hubble, that you have just done a great thing indeed."

"I have?" Mildred said, looking at the unconscious woman in surprise. "I just… I was only trying to save her…"

"And in saving this woman, you have saved the most important person in the universe," Miss Cackle said solemnly.

Mildred's eyes widened.

If she'd heard that statement from anyone else she would never have believed it, and it was still hard to swallow even hearing it from Miss Cackle, but the way she was looking at the woman now lying on Mildred's bed made it hard to doubt what she had just been told.

 _But how could… why would Miss Cackle say that this woman was that important?_

"You know," the woman on the bed said, suddenly sitting up to look at Mildred as though she hadn't been unconscious just a moment ago, "if it helps, I'm not entirely _comfortable_ with the idea of being that important; it's just that everyone else seems to think of me that way."

Lost for anything to say to that comment, Mildred simply stared in silence as the woman smiled at her, but then the woman turned to look at Miss Cackle and the smile faded.

"Oh no," the mysterious 'Doctor' groaned, lying back on the bed, one hand apparently automatically stroking Tabby even as she kept her gaze fixed on Miss Cackle. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"My job, Doctor," Miss Cackle replied.

"I thought you already had a job?" the 'Doctor' asked, moving up to lean on her elbows as she looked at Miss Cackle with a quizzical expression. "And it involved a few more fancy robes and spending time on Karn?"

"My role in the Sisterhood is… it would be easiest to consider it my summer activity," Miss Cackle replied. "Once the war started, my sisters and I were responsible for opening schools in other parts of history to ensure that those with the potential to do so were instructed in the use of certain… abilities. I understand you encountered something similar in your first meeting with that man… Sabbath, I believe his name was?"

"You know about Sabbath," the 'Doctor' said, looking up at the ceiling with a sigh, clearly lost in dark memories. "Of _course_ you know about Sabbath; why should the fact that you were basically gone back then stop you knowing all those little quirks?"

"Sabbath?" Mildred asked, uncertain if she should interrupt, torn between wanting to know who they were talking about and cautiously uncertain if she would even want to know.

"I am sure that even you will agree that his intentions were noble, and your main problem with him was that his means of executing them left much to be desired from your perspective, even if they were not based on flawed understanding," Miss Cackle noted as she returned the Doctor's glare with one of her own, although she did direct an apologetic glance at Mildred. "If nothing else, after he nearly drove all of reality to the point of collapse before he realised his error, I must ensure that such a threat as the one he posed cannot rise again."

"By ensuring that the High Council controls any knowledge that might leak out like that again?"

"By ensuring that those who possess such knowledge and power know _not_ to abuse it," Miss Cackle corrected. "The Time Lords are completely ignorant of my presence here, and only a few of my sisters know about our activities on Earth; we step in occasionally to ensure that everything adheres to the rules we have created, but we do not force them to do so."

"Um… excuse me…Sister _s_?" Mildred asked, using the Doctor's current silence to ask a question about the only part of that conversation that she could clearly follow right now. "I thought Agatha was your only sister?"

"Agatha?" The Doctor sat up and looked at Mildred. "Who's Agatha?"

"My Valeyard."

"Your _what_?" the Doctor sat up and looked sharply at Miss Cackle, the earlier fatigue forgotten in the face of her new outrage.

"Your what?" Mildred looked between the two women in confusion.

"I deliberately induced my last regeneration to trigger a Valeyard-induced split in the process, Doctor," Miss Cackle explained. "It also ensured that I would regenerate into a child, with the final goal of allowing me to essentially raise myself, in as much as I was raised by another witch in the process."

"Raised by another witch?" the Doctor looked at Miss Cackle, the earlier hostility now replaced by a look of sceptical curiosity. "As in someone believed _they_ were bringing _you_ up? That's very… open-minded of you."

"I was not willing to come in and impose my external perceptions on this society without judging its internal merits for myself, Doctor," Miss Cackle replied solemnly. "Being raised by a witch gave myself an insider's perspective on this culture, although I will admit that I had the more personal goal of attempting to… essentially raise the darker aspects of myself and reform them into the bargain."

"Was that before or after anyone learned about what I was trying to do with Missy?"

"My last regeneration took place before the War, so considerably earlier, I would believe," Miss Cackle smiled.

"In that case, a daring move," the Doctor nodded. "Just not the most practical one, I take it?"

"Agatha _did_ try to take over the school three times in the last year and nearly killed me as part of the second attempt; does that count?" Mildred asked awkwardly.

"Yes, that's a Valeyard for you," the Doctor nodded, before looking sharply at Mildred as she sat up once more. "Hold on; _her_ Valeyard tried to _kill_ you?"

"She… set me up to participate in a broomstick display with a sabotaged broom that would have failed while I was using it…" Mildred replied uncertainly.

"And you _let this happen_?" The Doctor glared at Miss Cackle.

"I was unconscious in my room and had no reason to believe that Agatha was an active threat prior to-"

"Yes, and I spent years treating the Valeyard as an inconvenience rather than a threat even when I knew he was still alive and out and about in the wider universe, and he nearly destroyed reality _twice_ ," the Doctor spat. "I appreciate that your sisterhood spend more time sitting around keeping themselves alive than actually _doing_ anything, but-"

"Look," Mildred said, looking urgently between the two women, "I'm sorry to interrupt, and I know that this is probably just another 'witch thing' I've missed, but what are you two _talking_ about? Valeyards and secret knowledge and Miss Cackle having a summer job… what _is_ this?"

"She doesn't know?" the Doctor looked at Miss Cackle with a firm stare.

"She is hardly unique in that regard, Doctor; virtually nobody outside the Sisterhood knows-"

"Except for me, now," the Doctor countered. "And I say that Mildred deserves to know after saving me from what could have been a truly embarrassing death before I could really get started."

"…Well," Miss Cackle said, looking at the Doctor with a brief smile, "I suppose I can't complain about you feeling invested in living after I convinced you to fight in the War."

With that, the headmistress turned to look solemnly at her school's 'worst witch'. "Mildred, the Doctor and I are not human."

Mildred could only stare at that revelation.

"You're… not human?" she repeated, mind flashing to demons and vampires and all kinds of other magical monsters she'd yet to dare ask about the reality of. "Then… what are you?"

"Aliens," the Doctor grinned.

" _Aliens_?"

"If this is about us looking human, I would clarify that actually _you_ look Time Lord, considering that we came first, but that's more of a matter of us giving evolution a template to follow after we evolved into this state," the Doctor shrugged, as though the concept that aliens and witches existed in the same world was something that Mildred should just take for granted.

"…You… influenced evolution?" she finally asked, wondering if she'd correctly understood that statement.

"According to theories-" Miss Cackle began.

"Tell it to someone who _didn't_ hear the truth from Rassilon's own lips, Ohila," the Doctor cut the headmistress off. "He might have exaggerated his role in events, but he _did_ have something to do with it."

"Rassilon?"

"One of the founders of our civilisation, and a key player in our development of time travel," the Doctor explained, smiling as Mildred looked at her incredulously. "Well, we didn't get the title 'Time Lord' just because we liked it."

"You… travel in time?" Mildred asked, before she looked at Miss Cackle. "Like… is that how you used the Mists?"

"The Mists?"

"A localised side-effect of the Time War, Doctor; it is comparatively manageable so long as precautions are taken," Miss Cackle explained, before she looked back at Mildred. "To answer your question, Mildred, our people, the Time Lords, assumed that title after we became the first race in the universe to master the power of time travel. We were capable of travelling across the whole of time and space, policing it and stopping things from going into flux. As part of our expansion across the universe, one of our first actions was to suppress and banish all official knowledge of magic, although knowledge of it remained in the wider universe, and… well, traits began to slip back into history after a particularly difficult event involving a time-travelling voodoo cult trying to conquer reality."

"…Right," Mildred said, looking uncertainly around her room for a moment before she decided to continue. "So… is magic… wrong?"

"Our people had certain expectations and preconceived notions about the wider universe in their early days and decided that it was easier to do things their way," Miss Cackle explained with a wistful smile. "That approach has changed considerably over the course of our history, in no small part due to the Doctor's role in encouraging our society to adopt a more balanced approach to the universe; Gallifrey as a whole is not eager to embrace the return of magic, but we shall not actively suppress it either."

"That's… good?"

"Nothing wrong with keeping the universe interesting," the Doctor smiled at Mildred's uncertainty.

"Within reason," Miss Cackle noted. "Which is where my sisters' efforts come in."

"And… you are?" Mildred asked. "Your… sisters, I mean?"

"When the Doctor and I refer to my 'sisters', we refer to my fellow members of the Sisterhood of Karn," Miss Cackle explained. "We are the last followers of the last ruler of pre-Time Lord society on Gallifrey, and as such, we are not only entrusted with the Sacred Flame of Eternal Life, but we also retained some knowledge of the practise of magic even when it was officially outlawed in the rest of the universe. It emerged in some side dimensions over the millennia, of course, but it only became a factor in this universe after the destruction inflicted by the War broke down so many of the old barriers…"

"The… the War?" Mildred asked, part of her already sure she wasn't going to like the answer she was about to receive.

"The Time War," the Doctor put in bitterly. "The Last Great Time War, between the Time Lords and the Daleks, the greatest conflict in all of history… and one that nearly destroyed both sides before I ended it on her incentive."

"I merely facilitated your regeneration into a suitable incarnation to save the universe; what you did is nobody's concern but your own."

"Regeneration?" Mildred asked.

"An ability used by our people to cheat death," Miss Cackle explained. "The Sisterhood are able to heal injuries and prolong life with the elixir we prepare with the Flame, but most Time Lords cheat death through the process of regeneration."

"Wait a minute…" Mildred said, holding up a hand as she frantically thought back over everything she'd heard in the last few minutes. "Regeneration… that's how Agatha came into existence?"

"Exactly," Miss Cackle confirmed. "Regeneration involves the subject's body and personality being completely rewritten to create a new for and thus escape the death of the old. Part of the Sisterhood's work on the elixir has allowed us to produce a variety of potions that can induce specific changes in the Time Lord's personality or appearance based on their personal desires."

"One of which you used to split yourself and Agatha up in the name of some kind of sociological experiment, correct?" the Doctor asked.

"And one of which was used to ensure that the Doctor would become the soldier who could end the Time War for us all," Miss Cackle said, even as an acknowledging nod confirmed the Doctor's earlier assessment.

"Right…" Mildred said, deciding that she didn't want to know more about the Time War issue before she looked at the Doctor with a new sense of understanding. "Hold on… this 'regeneration' thing you mentioned… that's why Miss Cackle didn't know you were going to look like this? You just… did it? You… died recently, I mean?"

"And with a bigger change than usual," the Doctor smiled, reaching up to indicate her chest. "After all, I didn't have _these_ a few hours ago."

"You didn't?" Mildred said, before her eyes widened at the implication. "Hold on; are you saying that-?"

"I was a man before my last regeneration?" the Doctor smiled. "And had been for the last couple of thousand years over thirteen lifetimes."

Mildred could only stare at that revelation.

"You… you're over _two thousand_?" she yelled, privately amazed that was the part of the last statement she was choosing to focus on.

"Give or take a few centuries; I lost track of my age after I lost my memory for the twentieth century."

"You forgot the twentieth century?"

"No, I forgot who I was while I was stuck on Earth living _through_ the twentieth century," the Doctor clarified with an awkward smile. "Woke up half a dozen bodies ago with no memory of my past, sitting in a railway carriage in the late 1880s, with my only instructions being to meet a man named Fitz in St Louis in 2001; didn't know who I was or where I came from until I met Fitz and my box repaired itself, and even then I took a few more years to remember my people and bring them back…"

"Bring them-?"

"A long story that is best told another time, Mildred," Miss Cackle interjected. "You have a busy day today that I cannot get you out of, but you doubtless have further questions that you wish answered, so we shall discuss them in greater detail once you return from your current ingredients acquisitions project."

"That's… fair enough," Mildred said, nodding awkwardly at the headmistress before looking at the Doctor. "You… you can stay here for a bit if you want."

"I might just do that," the Doctor smiled at Mildred, her hand reaching over to stroke Tabby again. "Could be good to have a quiet day or two to get everything sorted out after all this…"


	3. A New Alias for a New Doctor

Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ belongs to the BBC and _Worst Witch_ belongs to Jill Murphy; you know the drill

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: Just to be sure everyone takes this into account later, as far as the Doctor knows, the two Masters chose to abandon him/her to face the Cybermen alone

The Great Doctor

 _The problem with my lifestyle_ , the Doctor mused as she sat up on Mildred's bed, idly staring out of the window, _is that it so rarely allows time to just sit and think, you're not sure what to do when you've got it_.

She'd had the opportunity during her time watching the Vault, of course, but when she'd also had to work at the university, there was only so much time she could spend with her own thoughts while also maintaining her cover. Add in the fact that she was so new to this body that she wasn't even sure what she wanted to do with herself right now, on top of the fact that she'd lost the TARDIS and had no immediate plans for how to get the old girl back.

If she'd still been in the ship, she might have appreciated the chance to get a better feel for her new personality, to say nothing of spending some time thinking about what the new gender would mean long-term, but right now, she was faced with a massive upheaval of her long-standing perceptions of herself while cut off from everything she'd come to value about her past. She appreciated that she'd wanted to try something new before her last regeneration, but wanting something new didn't meant that she was prepared to deal with something this significant on such short notice with so little resources.

Looking down, the Doctor saw a cloaked figure walking into what she believed was the school's main entrance, but decided not to worry about it; Ohila might be frustratingly enigmatic, but she was sure that the woman could take care of herself if there was a serious problem.

"Still…" she said, standing up to take a couple of experimental paces before she glanced over at Tabby. "No harm in checking things out, right?"

Tabby meowed in response, prompting a chuckle from the Doctor. "Don't worry; I'll watch out for the mice."

With that said, the Doctor grabbed the long black cloak Ohila had left for her- she wasn't going to completely change her clothes until she knew what the situation was regarding her own wardrobe, but the cloak should deflect awkward questions- and walked into the corridors of the school, smiling politely at the pupils as she went downstairs. She attracted a couple of inquiring stares as she went lower into the facility, but most of the students (all female, the Doctor noted; did that mean anything for this 'magic' or was it just a school thing?) seemed to just be mildly curious rather than worried about the unfamiliar woman.

 _Good to know I can still pull it off_ , the Doctor thought to herself; her gender might have changed, but so far, the default strategy of 'act like you belong and people assume you do' seemed to be as valid as ever. As she turned down another corridor, she saw a group of young girls walking out of a classroom, but she paused when she saw the other black-cloaked figure, the deep hood still pulled up over their head, pause outside the open classroom door. For a moment the figure just stood there, but then the figure pushed their hood back as she walked into the room, revealing a young woman with long blonde hair

"Esme!" someone yelled from inside the classroom. Walking forward to see what was happening inside the classroom, the Doctor saw a small blonde girl hug the blonde in the cloak, while a dark-skinned girl with thick curly hair and a paler girl with short dark hair and glasses watched.

"Esmerelda," another voice said, the Doctor stepping to the side to look at the new sight of a tall, thin woman in a black velvet dress with her hair tied back in a tight bun.

"Well met, Miss Hardbroom," the girl who was apparently Esmerelda said, raising her hand to her forehead in a greeting gesture the Doctor hadn't seen before, before she turned around to look curiously at the Doctor standing off to the side behind her. "And… you are?"

"Doctor Myrlina Tempora," the Doctor said impulsively, copying the greeting Esmerelda had just given, hoping that her spur-of-the-moment alias wouldn't be too strange. "I'm… an old acquaintance of Miss Cackle's; just stopped by."

"Indeed," Miss Hardbroom said, looking the Doctor over with a pointed stare. "Miss Cackle did not tell me that she was expecting a… guest."

"It was an impulse thing and I just arrived this morning, but I've already spoken to her about it; no need to worry about me," the Doctor said, clapping her hands together with a smile. "Anyway, like I said, I'm just here to catch up with an old friend, and I had a bit of time to do that this morning and she already knows I'm in the school, so what are you doing here, Esmerelda?"

"I came to see my sisters, and hopefully, Miss Cackle," Esmerelda said, her tone slightly cool as she addressed this stranger even as she maintained a respectful manner.

"Ethel is off-site at the moment doing a task I've set," Miss Hardbroom said, shooting a sceptical glance at the Doctor before her gaze settled on the young woman. "But I shall tell Miss Cackle you're here."

"Thank you," Esmerelda said, waiting for Miss Hardbroom to vanish in a strange shimmer effect before she turned her attention back to the young blonde girl who was apparently her sister. "So aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"This is Beatrice, that's Clarice," the young blonde said, indicating the other two girls still in the room. "She's head of year."

"I-I can't believe it," the dark-skinned girl who was apparently Beatrice said, smiling enthusiastically at Esmerelda. "You're such a hero; everyone knows what you did, what you sacrificed to save Cackle's."

"She's the best," the young girl said warmly, giving her older sister a quick hug.

"Yes," Clarice said, adjusting her bag as she looked at Esmerelda, "but since you no longer have any magic, are you actually allowed to be here?"

"Pardon?" the younger sister said, stepping away from Esmerelda to glare at Clarice.

"I just thought non-magical girls weren't allowed in witching academies-" Clarice began.

"And _that_ kind of attitude is why traditions need to adapt," the Doctor observed, arms folded as she looked at the young girl; she acknowledged that she wasn't part of this society and didn't officially have the 'right' to make these kind of judgements, but she had yet to encounter a situation where permitting a prejudice to continue would be a good idea.

"I'm just saying-" Clarice tried to continue.

"You're not saying anything!" the small blonde said, her initially friendly attitude replaced by a harsh glare as she glared at her friend. "She's the best witch, the best sister, the best head of year this academy's ever had, or _will_ ever have!"

"But… she's no longer… magic," Clarice said, even as the other girl grabbed Clarice's arm and led her out of the classroom, the Doctor stepping to the side to prevent a crash.

"How dare she!" the young girl said, moving to stand in front of her sister. "How dare she!"

"I'm sure she didn't mean it," Esmerelda said, managing to sound conciliatory despite having just been confronted with what had to be a painful topic for her. "She's just a bit… blunt."

"I don't care!" the girl said, eyes screwed up in rage. "She's not my friend any more!"

"No need to be impulsive because someone's an idiot," the Doctor noted, prompting the two sisters to look at her in surprise. "If you're going to end a friendship, do it because someone repeatedly shows an inability to be anything more than an irredeemable psychopath; don't do it because someone says something stupid once."

"…Right," Esmerelda said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor before looking at Sybil. "Anyway, if we're talking about school, don't worry about whether I should or shouldn't be here; it's possible it'll all be sorted out sooner than you think."

The Doctor admired what she could see of Esmerelda's confidence so far, but that did raise a few questions regarding what she was planning to do about the current situation, given what the Doctor had heard so far about Esmerelda apparently no longer possessing her magic…

"Miss Cackle will see you now," Miss Hardbroom said, appearing behind the Hallow siblings before she looked at the Doctor. "She has also confirmed that you have freedom to walk around the school as you wish, Doctor Tempora, so long as you do not interfere with classes."

"Of course," the Doctor nodded. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Privately, she suspected that Ohila was giving her enough rope to hang herself if she tried some equivalently terrible stunt of her last attempted to save Clara from the raven during that confrontation with Rassilon on Gallifrey, but since the Doctor wasn't going to do something that desperate this time around, she felt safe just focusing on enjoying the sights for the moment while her new personality sorted itself out.

* * *

Walking through the forest, Mildred almost couldn't believe that she was doing something this comparatively normal after the previous night. She'd spent the morning learning that aliens were real, that her headmistress was actually an alien, and saving the life of an alien woman who was over two thousand years old and had been a man less than a day ago, and now she was walking in a forest with Maud, Ethel and Felicity, trying to show that for once she knew what she was doing.

"What's wrong with all of you?" she looked back at her fellow students, Felicity awkwardly helping Ethel down a slope while Maud studied the list just behind her.

"This place is…" Maud began.

"Don't say creepy," Mildred cut her off nonchalantly. "It's not creepy; it's just trees and a bit of wind. Have none of you ever been camping?"

There were times when Mildred was unnerved and frustrated to be reminded of how her background put her at a disadvantage to the other girls when it came to spellwork, but for the moment, in an environment where she knew more than Ethel Hallow, she didn't think it was totally unfair for her to joy it for once.

"I used to go every holiday with my mum," Mildred continued. "She was a girl guide. She taught me everything I know about the countryside; trees, tracking-"

Just when she was starting to get on a roll, Mildred did her best to hide her frustration when she fell into a hole in the ground.

"This, for example," she said, trying to collect her dignity despite Ethel's smug grin, "is called a badger's sett… Oh, and look," she added, grabbing at a small plant just beside her.

"I've found some grimly grass! Definitely grimly grass! Another item ticked off the list."

She smiled as she passed the plant to Maud, glad that she had found some way to redeem such a stupid mistake. "This place is about as enchanted as a multi-storey car park."

"Come on Felicity," Ethel said, ignoring Mildred's input once again as she walked off up the small hill. "We'll get the raven feathers."

"Really?" Felicity said, looking uncertainly at the middle Hallow. "Shouldn't we stick together?"

"No," Ethel said firmly. "I want to get home before dark."

Mildred still thought that Ethel and the others were exaggerating the 'threat' of this forest, but she appreciated that they wanted to get away from here, so she wasn't going to press the issue when she had no real reason to want to stay here longer than she absolutely had to.

Besides, even if she wasn't able to contribute anything to the situation back at Cackle's, she wanted to talk with the Doctor again before that strange woman decided to move on; there were so many questions she wanted to ask…


	4. The Maternal Doctor

Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ belongs to the BBC and _Worst Witch_ belongs to Jill Murphy; you know the drill

Feedback: Always appreciated

The Great Doctor

After walking aimlessly through the school for a few more minutes, the Doctor smiled slightly as she saw Sybil Hallow sitting sulkily in the school's library. The young girl struck her as impulsive, and she was obviously emotional about matters relating to whatever had happened to Esmerelda, but despite the potentially negative first impression the Doctor rather liked the young girl.

 _I wonder if I'm developing a maternal instinct now_?

"Hello there," the Doctor smiled at the young girl.

"Oh," Sybil said, turning to look at the Doctor in surprise. "Doctor… Tempora, wasn't it?"

"That's me," the Doctor nodded, sitting down opposite the young girl. "Sybil, I believe?"

"Sybil Hallow," the girl nodded, raising her hand to her forehead in the manner that the Doctor had seen used as a greeting earlier. "Well met, Doctor Tempora."

"Well met," the Doctor smiled at the young girl as she copied the gesture. "Everything well?"

"Just…" Sybil sighed.

"What Clarice said earlier?" the Doctor smiled. "I can understand being angry with a friend, but like I said earlier, condemn a former friend because they've proven to be an irredeemable psychopath, not because they said something stupid."

"…Did that… happen to you?" Sybil asked, looking at the Doctor with curious apprehension.

"It… wasn't a good experience," the Doctor acknowledged, before smiling reassuringly at the girl, putting those particular memories to the back of her mind. "But the point is that you need to move past that; Clarice strikes me as the type who speaks before she thinks, but that doesn't mean she's a bad person."

"But you heard what she said-!" Sybil began.

"And what's more important?" the Doctor countered. "The friendship you've shared with Clarice since you met, or one comment she made this morning because she was, from what I've heard, being an idiot about what sounds like an unconventional situation?"

Sybil looked at the Doctor thoughtfully for a moment, before she finally smiled and gave the Doctor an uncertain nod.

"Th… thanks," she said. "You've… what you said…"

"So long as I made you think, that's the main thing," the Doctor smiled. "That's the most important thing, in my experience; that people think before they do anything big."

With that last exchange, the Doctor watched as Sybil left the library, before she got to her own feet and began to head for the area that had previously been pointed out to her as Miss Cackle's office. So far nothing seemed to be seriously _wrong_ here, but considering what she'd heard about this Esmerelda girl saving the school and losing her magic in the process, she was curious to hear the finer details from an old acquaintance.

* * *

"Ah, Doctor," Miss Cackle said, smiling as the other Time Lord/Lady walked into her office. "Or would you prefer Myrlina Tempora for the moment?"

"Either works; I just went for something that sounded good," the Doctor shrugged as she sat down on the other side of the desk.

"Miss Hardbroom was… sceptical… but she appears to have accepted your explanation for your presence here," Miss Cackle smiled. "What inspired it?"

"A couple of incidents where people called me 'Merlin', and, well, 'Tempora' is obvious," the Doctor shrugged. "I'll need to think about a more 'mundane' alternative once I'm out there, of course; that's obviously too distinctive, and 'John Smith' isn't going to work as well as it used to…"

"Did that ever work?"

"It served its purpose," the Doctor shrugged, before looking at Miss Cackle in a more pointed manner. "What happened with Esmerelda Hallow?"

"…It was Agatha."

"Your Valeyard?" the Doctor said, raising a critical eyebrow at the headmistress. "What does she have to do with anything?"

"She took Esmerelda's magic."

"That's possible?" the Doctor raised both eyebrows in surprise.

"Only because Esmerelda was tricked into believing Agatha was me," Miss Cackle clarified, her expression solemn. "Agatha's powers were stripped by the Great Wizard for her previous attempts to take control of the school from me, but when Agatha gained an ally in the form of a former teacher I fired earlier last year, they created a scenario where it appeared that Agatha had taken my powers so that Esmerelda would give her powers to 'me'."

"She cared about that?" the Doctor looked at Miss Cackle in surprise.

"When the split was triggered, our memories of our true histories were 'suppressed' so that it would not compromise the point of this experiment," Miss Cackle explained. "I remembered my true role in the Sisterhood some time ago, after I grew up, but Agatha still considers herself to be a witch."

"She doesn't remember anything?"

"She may have vague memories of my true history, but nothing to definitively confirm to herself that she is anything other than a witch who was born and raised on Earth."

"Which is good if she's anything like my own Valeyard," the Doctor said firmly, before her expression softened. "Except when it means an innocent girl loses something this important to her entire _life_."

"I know," Miss Cackle said, staring sadly at the Doctor. "I just spoke with Esmerelda about the transition, and she compared living without her magic to living in a world that has been stripped of colour, deprived of so many of the abilities that she took for granted while she was growing up…"

"And you feel responsible," the Doctor finished, smiling at the seemingly older woman (she wasn't entirely sure how much older Ohila was compared to herself). "Taking on this kind of burden is never easy, is it?"

"I almost wonder if this is why so many of our people avoided associating with the 'lesser races' during the Time War," the headmistress said grimly. "It was easier to stay detached if we didn't have to operate on the same level as them all the time…"

She looked at the Doctor with a new sense of curiosity. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?" the Doctor asked.

"Cope outside of Gallifrey."

"Says the woman who lives on Karn with no real technology-?"

"I may not rely on the technological achievements of our shared culture, but I still depend greatly on the safety net of my powers and my position in the Sisterhood when I go anywhere," Miss Cackle clarified, looking solemnly at the Doctor. "You have twice gone out into the wider universe in full awareness of the fact that the only thing you could rely on was yourself-"

"Just twice?" the Doctor looked curiously at Miss Cackle. "After all the times I've run away from the planet?"

"We both know that they would never have turned down a request for help from you if it came after your exile, regardless of your political status back home," Miss Cackle observed with a slightly morbid smile. "You were potentially in trouble when you went travelling before you surrendered your location to the Time Lords to end Magnus's War Games, and even that was a matter of choice on your part; it was only after the Time War that you were completely on your own… and I apologise for bringing up difficult memories, but how did you cope during that time?"

"It helped that I had practise acting alone after that time with the Faction," the Doctor said, her manner grim as she recalled how long she had spent travelling alone in her eighth body, fighting to cope in a universe when he didn't even remember what he had lost before he woke in that railway carriage. "It was harder when I _knew_ what I'd lost after I thought I'd used the moment, but… well, it was still easier to go around when I knew that I had a home to fall back on if I was dealing with a really big situation."

"And that is my point," Miss Cackle clarified. "You spent the better part of three lifetimes completely cut off from everything you may have relied on even if you officially preferred not to resort to that; how did you do it?"

"It…" the Doctor began, before she nodded in understanding. "Well, it wasn't always easy, I'll give you that; what you have to remember in a situation like that is… well, that there isn't a choice."

"Which is something I'm sure Esmerelda has considered-"

"The difference is that she didn't choose to start it," the Doctor cut the older woman off. "I get that she chose to give her magic to what she believed was you, but it sounds like she did that as an impulsive good deed rather than out of any clear plan… Out of curiosity, what do these people _know_ about life outside of magic?"

"Limited, I am ashamed to admit," Miss Cackle conceded. "In the years I have been living among them, Mildred Hubble is the first student we have who does not originate from a family raised in magic. I keep as up-to-date with matters in the ordinary world as I can, and some of the leaders in our society maintain an interest, but I still…"

"You just don't _get_ it," the Doctor finished for Miss Cackle, looking at her in sympathetic understanding. "It's easy to take in the facts and figures, but actually knowing enough to live among them is… well, it's harder, am I right?"

"Which makes it harder to know when I am doing the right thing," Miss Cackle said. "I can tell Esmerelda Hallow that it is possible for her to fit into the Ordinary world, but how can I do that convincingly when I do not know what she needs to do?"

"I'll see what I can say to her," the Doctor smiled in understanding. "After all, it's not like we haven't both gone through our recent share of upheavals, when you think about it."


	5. Accepting Our Choices

Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ belongs to the BBC and _Worst Witch_ belongs to Jill Murphy; you know the drill

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: Just to get this clarified in advance, when the Doctor refers to her 'grandfather' in this chapter, she's talking about Ordinal-General Quences, the head of the Doctor's family home of Lungbarrow (as revealed in the Virgin New Adventures novel of the same title); he wasn't _exactly_ the Doctor's grandfather in the same sense of the Doctor being Susan's grandparent, but it's the closest term the Doctor can find for their relationship that won't attract more questions

The Great Doctor

The Doctor was silently pleased with herself when it didn't take long to track down Esmerelda's current location; this new body still felt strange at times, but it seemed as though her sense of direction had straightened out more quickly than it had after her last couple of regenerations.

 _I just wish I could remember which gender was meant to have the best sense of direction_ …

"Hello, Esmerelda," the Doctor smiled at the young woman standing near what looked like a netball court.

"Mmm?" Esmerelda looked up at the speaker in surprise. "Oh… Doctor Tempora, right?"

"That's me," the Doctor nodded, before her smile became more subdued. "Miss Cackle told me about what happened to you; you have my sympathies."

"Thank you," Esmerelda nodded at the Doctor. "If you don't mind me asking…"

"Who am I?" the Doctor finished with a smile. "Like I said, I'm an old friend of Miss Cackle's; we… our families grew up in the same area."

"Really?" Esmerelda looked the Doctor over in surprise.

"Obviously she's a bit older than me, but she offered me some… interesting advice during a few difficult periods of my life," the Doctor said, hoping that this version could bend the truth more believably than some of her predecessors.

"Did you… go here?" Esmerelda asked.

"Cackles?" the Doctor looked at the school with a smile. "No, which is a pity; it looks like a nice enough place, but I went to an Academy that my family have been attending for generations."

"Not a nice place?"

"Oh, I made a few good friends, but everyone wanted me to be _more_ than what I wanted to be," the Doctor explained. "It wasn't enough for my… grandfather… that I wanted my doctorate; no, I had to be ready to take over the family when he stepped down, carry out all his old ambitions and plans because he didn't have the intelligence or the initiative or some combination of the aforementioned to do them himself…"

"Oh, I've been there," Esmerelda smiled briefly. "Having to deal with the pressure of being the eldest born in a family, faced with all the responsibilities and duties when all I really _wanted_ to do is spend time with my sisters…"

"And I didn't even have that; most of the family resented me attracting so much attention even when I made it clear I didn't want it," the Doctor put in with a smile. "That was one of the main reasons I left home in the first place, actually; a good opportunity to get away from it all and not have to worry about that kind of thing."

"Ah," Esmerelda said, her brief smile faltering as she looked at the Doctor with a new sense of understanding. "And… you think I should view this the same way?"

"Obviously it's not _exactly_ the same, but if I may be blunt, you aren't going to get anywhere hanging on to the past," the Doctor said, politely but firmly. "I understand that it's… I appreciate that you losing your magic is different from me leaving home, but there is one key detail they have in common; both of us essentially abandoned what we had and had to explore a new world without a familiar safety net."

"A safety net?" Esmerelda repeated.

"I always knew my grandfather would step in and stop me from suffering a _serious_ sentence if I did anything wrong because of his plans for me, and you always had the assurance that you had your magic to fall back on," the Doctor explained. "I appreciate that the circumstances are different, considering that I chose to leave home and thus lose that safety net where I understand you were basically tricked, but the key point is the same; if you can't regain what you lost, look at what you've gained."

"A life away from magic?" Esmerelda asked.

"A chance to make a life for yourself away from the parts you didn't like," the Doctor clarified, noting that the young ex-witch at least seemed interested in the idea rather than being explicitly scared by it. "I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is, and sometimes a clean break can be a good thing."

"A clean break?"

"I once woke up in a train carriage with no conscious recollection of anything I'd done before that moment and nothing on me but the clothes I was wearing and a note with very vague instructions," the Doctor replied.

"You lost your memory?" Esmerelda looked at the Doctor with a new sense of sympathy in her curiosity. "What happened?"

"It was… a difficult experience," the Doctor said, not wanting to go into too much detail about that confusing time in her eighth body after the 'first' destruction of Gallifrey and the confrontation with the Grandfather. "My point is, compared to that, I think we can safely agree that you're in a much better position than I was back then; if I can thrive when I have absolutely no memory, I think you've got a good chance of pulling through this experience."

"…Thanks," Esmerelda said at last, smiling slightly at the Doctor. "I… I appreciate your input."

"Well, we're all going through upheavals; might as well try and pull together," the Doctor smiled as she indicated her chest. "I mean, you're missing your magic, I'm dealing with these… can you believe that I was a tall white-haired Scotsman just yesterday?"

"…Pardon?" Esmerelda blinked in surprise.

"Ah; that's _not_ a normal situation even here, I take it?"

The Doctor was saved from trying to explain her latest slip-up when Miss Hardbroom suddenly appeared beside the two women, looking sympathetically at Esmerelda before turning a hardened gaze towards the Doctor.

"Miss Cackle wishes to see you," she said.

"Right," the Doctor said, looking apologetically at Esmerelda. "Sorry to cut this short, but-"

"I understand," Esmerelda smiled, even if there was a slightly sad edge in her eyes. "Old friends take precedent over new ones…"

"More that if she's asking for my help, it must be serious," the Doctor replied, allowing Miss Hardbroom to take her arm before there was the swirling sensation of another new form of teleportation…

* * *

"Doctor," Miss Cackle said, looking at the Doctor with a new sense of uncertainty in her manner as the other Time Lord and her deputy headmistress appeared. "Thank you for coming so promptly."

"You know me; can't ignore a distress call," the Doctor replied before looking between the two teachers. "What's the situation here?"

"Miss Cackle is contemplating permitting Agatha to be released from the painting," Miss Hardbroom replied.

"The painting?" the Doctor repeated, before turning to look at a particular painting on the wall, displaying a woman who looked very like Miss Cackle and a younger woman in a black dress much like Miss Hardbroom's, each wearing the distinctive pointy hat of a stereotypical witch. "You mean that's actually _them_?"

"Consider it a smaller-scale version of _Gallifrey Falls_ ," Miss Cackle explained. "They are frozen in this single moment of time from just after their capture, aware of the moment and nothing else beyond it…"

"Effective prison," the Doctor nodded, before focusing on Miss Cackle. "And why release her?"

"To restore Esmerelda's magic," Miss Cackle said. "If I could make her listen-"

"You can't."

"At her core-"

"Do you think I didn't consider that at any point when I was dealing with the Valeyard?" the Doctor cut Miss Cackle off, looking firmly at the headmistress. "You're meant to be the older of us, Ada Cackle; if you can't accept that Valeyards don't _have_ anything redeemable in them, there's no point to my being here."

"Valeyards?" Miss Hardbroom looked curiously at the Doctor and the headmistress.

"You were only ever opposed to your Valeyard," Miss Cackle said, ignoring the witch as she looked urgently at the Doctor. "I have grown up with Agatha; she is not pure evil-"

"They're Valeyards; the whole point is that there's nothing _but_ evil in them!" the Doctor protested. "He made it clear in London that there was nothing left of me in him; I appreciate your original plan, but from what I've heard about this woman, I think three attempts to take over this school and endanger the lives of innocent children into the bargain makes it clear that there's at the very least very little of you left in her if there was ever anything."

"Would _someone_ ," Miss Hardbroom cut in, looking impatiently between the two women, "care to explain to me what a 'Valeyard' is?"

"Ah; you stayed for this?" the Doctor looked awkwardly at the deputy head before turning back to Miss Cackle. "Am I just losing focus because I'm still fresh in this body, or did you miss that she hadn't left too?"

"I missed it too," Miss Cackle nodded. "Then again, this is a particularly intense conversation for both of us-"

" _Why_?" Miss Hardbroom looked urgently between the two. "What _is_ a 'Valeyard'?"

"The manifestation of the darkest aspects of our nature," the Doctor said, turning to face Miss Hardbroom with a solemn expression. "It requires exceptional circumstances to create a Valeyard, but once they have been unleashed, they will do absolutely everything in their power to destroy their source, no matter what it means for the wider… world."

"In what sense?" Miss Hardbroom asked.

"It… would be better for you not to ask, Hecate," Miss Cackle said apologetically. "Suffice it to say, I took part in an experiment to deliberately create my own Valeyard, with the goal of attempting to tame and control my darker sides to use them in a more positive manner, and it… well, it led to Agatha."

"I… see," Miss Hardbroom said, looking at the headmistress with a stare that was somehow curious and stern at the same time. "I assume that is the reason you feel… particularly guilty about Esmerelda Hallow's fate?"

"She has lost her magic literally because of my own mistake," Miss Cackle said solemnly. "I have to do something-"

"And I appreciate the sentiment behind that, but there is literally _no_ chance of this Agatha person getting over it," the Doctor said. "Valeyards can't forgive, and I sincerely doubt that Agatha would be capable of what you're hoping; if my Valeyard thought nothing of killing Ace, what reason would Agatha have to care about what happens to Esmerelda?"

"…True," Miss Cackle nodded, looking at the Doctor with a new sense of sorrow. "I… I _knew_ that, but I just hoped…"

"And I understand that," the Doctor nodded, reaching over to place a sympathetic hand on Miss Cackle's shoulder. "It's hard, but if there's one thing I've learned over the centuries, it's that some people can't be anything other than what they choose to be."

"Quite," Miss Hardbroom noted, looking between the Doctor and the headmistress with a pointed stare and a tentative half-smile.

"Which doesn't mean that some people can't surprise you, of course," the Doctor noted. "Just that it takes a very specific set of circumstances to get them to that point, and the trick is recognising whether or not it's worth the effort of finding the moment that will change them…"


	6. Failing Fathers

Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ belongs to the BBC and _Worst Witch_ belongs to Jill Murphy; you know the drill

Feedback: Always appreciated

The Great Doctor

With the meeting in Miss Cackle's office concluded in an awkward manner that had left nobody truly satisfied but at least left Miss Hardbroom ignorant of Miss Cackle's alien nature, the Doctor resumed her wander around the school while the two teachers returned to their earlier business. A glance outside at the field where she'd left Esmerelda had showed the young woman talking with her sister and her sister's friends as they tossed a ball around, so the Doctor felt safe assuming that Esmerelda was coping with things for the moment, but that left her with little to do but continue her earlier explorations of the school.

Looking at a couple of the books here, she already had a couple of ideas about how she could use this 'magic' to retrieve the TARDIS from wherever it had gone after her regeneration, but that still left her with the issue that she didn't have a good feel for this particular power. She appreciated that Miss Cackle could help, but some part of her felt that Mildred deserved at least the chance to see the ship after saving her life…

Her thoughts were swiftly interrupted when she walked around a corner and almost ran into a tall man in a suit with a thick moustache and a receding hairline. Quickly assessing the new arrival, the now-female Time Lord wondered what it said about her life that she wasn't surprised that this school had someone like this as a parent to at least one student (he was too confident to be here for a personal reason, but she was inclined to think 'parent' because he didn't give off the approachable manner she'd expect from a good teacher). Regardless of how far she travelled from Gallifrey, it seemed as though every planet had at least one man there who immediately gave her the impression of having a high opinion of himself in his own particular fiefdom and revelled in every possible opportunity to prove his power to himself and others.

"Who are you?" he said, looking the Doctor over in a scathing manner.

"Doctor Myrlina Tempora," the Doctor replied, folding her arms to project a confident air despite her mismatched clothing. "And you are?"

"Triton Hallow," the man replied, looking sceptically at the Doctor. "And who are you, exactly? A new teacher?"

"An old acquaintance of Ada Cackle's, actually," the Doctor replied. "I was just in the area and decided to drop in."

"'Drop in'," Mr Hallow repeated, looking at her with open disdain. "You show up at this school, in clothing as tattered as the reputation of this place, and decide that you will just 'drop in' on the strength of an old acquaintance?"

"A tattered reputation?" the Doctor noted, before her eyes narrowed. "Hold on; Hallow… you're Esmerelda's father, aren't you?"

"Indeed," the man said, eyes narrowing as he eyed the Doctor.

"Well, that explains it."

"Explains what?" Mr Hallow raised a critical eyebrow.

"Why Esmerelda seemed to need help from me that she should have been getting from you."

"Excuse me?" Mr Hallow said, sounding as though he'd only just kept enough control of himself not to stutter with rage.

"That girl has lost something intrinsic to her very identity and I'll bet you're more focused on blaming everyone else for the loss than helping her deal with it, correct?" The Doctor folded her arms as she studied Mr Hallow, barely suppressing a smile as she registered the indignation on his face.

"You have no right-"

"Maybe I don't have the right as a professional educator any more, but as a… woman… who's been _like_ a parent to several people, coupled with having spent the last fifty years as a lecturer in another school, I like to think I've earned _some_ right to speak for a young woman who I feel isn't getting enough support during a difficult period of her life," the Doctor cut the man off, shooting him a cool stare that she conceded would have probably worked better if this had happened a week ago (she would have had trouble maintaining a stare like this while trying to hold back the regeneration, but the tall Scotsman had a good face for glaring most of the time). "I get that you probably had plans for her life, but a good parent accepts the situation and tries to help solve it; as far as I can tell, Esmerelda has been made to feel isolated in her old life and given limited opportunities to explore new possibilities."

"Such as what?" Mr Hallow looked scathingly at the Doctor's tattered clothing underneath her borrowed cloak. "What do you even _do_?"

"Well, like I said, I've spent the last few decades as a lecturer, but for the most part, consider me a traveller who deals with problems," the Doctor said, smiling slightly at the thought. "Think the Lone Ranger in a box and a- no, scratch that part, I'll consider it for special occasions but dresses in my line of work are _not_ a good idea…"

"Doctor?" Miss Cackle said, walking out from around another corner, her smile faltering briefly as she registered the other individual in the room. "Mr Hallow; well met-"

"'Well met' indeed!" Mr Hallow said, indignantly glaring at the headmistress. "Where is my daughter?"

"Ethel?" Miss Cackle said curiously. "She's off collecting ingredients-"

"Not Ethel; Esmerelda!" Mr Hallow interjected.

"Esmerelda?" the Doctor and Miss Cackle said simultaneously, each recognising that there was more to this question than just the man's apparently normal arrogance.

"For reasons I cannot fathom, she's come here, and my wife sent me to fetch her," the man replied.

"Ah," Miss Cackle said.

"Well," the Doctor put in, shrugging uncertainly at the man in what even she recognised was a weak attempt to defer to his authority while trying to cool his temper, "if you give us a moment, we can take you to her?"

"Would you be able to explain what she's even doing here?" Mr Hallow asked, even as the three began to head towards the courtyard.

"I think that's something that should remain Esmerelda's business," Miss Cackle said, before she glanced over at the Doctor. "On that topic, Doctor Tempora, maybe you could-?"

"Say no more," the Doctor smiled, increasing the pace of her walk as she headed further along the corridor, leaving Miss Cackle to talk with the frustrated Mr Hallow. The Doctor acknowledged that it was slightly unfair to leave her old acquaintance with the burden of talking with such an unpleasant individual, but at this early stage of her current personality, she didn't think she'd be able to maintain the necessary personal control to make her points without doing something relatively drastic like paralysing him with Venusian aikido (assuming she could do that in this body), so it made sense for her to warn Esmerelda before she had to face an unpleasant surprise.

Fortunately, the mental map the Doctor had already created of the school appeared to be correct, as it didn't take long for her to reach the courtyard where she'd left Esmerelda, smiling as she found the young woman was now accompanied by her sister and her sister's other two friends, each of whom were looking at her with a new sense of camaraderie that had been missing when the Doctor last saw this trio.

"Doctor Tempora?" the young girl in glasses the Doctor was fairly sure was named Clarice said, looking at the Time Lord in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Informing Esmerelda that her father's arrived," the Doctor replied, even as she nodded politely at the young girl.

" _Dad_?" Sybil said in surprise.

"Oh," Esmerelda said, a moment of panic fading into resignation. "I thought I'd have longer before he found me."

"I'm sorry we couldn't do much-" the Doctor began.

"You did more than I expected," Esmerelda said, smiling reassuringly at the Doctor, even if there was a slight hesitancy in the smile. "I think… I think I'm looking forward to the challenge."

"Good," the Doctor nodded, smiling in relief at the young woman. "Just remember; Cackle's is here if you need it."

"I'll keep that in mind," Esmerelda said, just as her father and Miss Cackle walked onto the courtyard.

"Can I ask what the point of this particular excursion was, Esmerelda?" Mr Hallow said, looking with such intensity at his oldest daughter that he seemed to be completely ignorant of the fact that his youngest was even present. "I doubt that your magic has been restored, and now I find that this school is spending time teaching spells to duplicate _cheese_?"

"We were running low on ingredients," Miss Hardbroom cut in, stepping forward in defence of the school's headmistress, "and the second years, including Ethel, are doing a fine job of replenishing them."

"Where have you sent them?" Mr Hallow asked.

"Hollow Wood, if you must know," the Doctor put in.

"Hollow Wood?" the 'wizard' (was the term in this society wizard or warlock?) said disdainfully. "Just when I think things can't get any worse-"

"You know, it's easy to criticise, but unless you know what kind of challenges this school is facing on a daily basis, you're not going to get anywhere if you just default to complaining a lot," the Doctor put in with a teasing smile (she hoped she didn't look 'cheeky' like this; she was too old for that sort of look).

" _Complaining a lot_?" Mr Hallow glared at the Doctor.

"There's a line between pointing out a legitimate fault and just whining because you didn't get your way, and you are very much on the wrong side of that line right now, Mr Hallow," the Doctor replied, pretending not to notice the sneakily admiring glances she was receiving from Esmerelda and Sybil; clearly people didn't often talk back to Triton Hallow like this. "Maybe you don't approve of how they do things here, but you don't have the _right_ to make that kind of observation when you're not an educator yourself."

"And you think you have the right to criticise me yourself?" Mr Hallow countered indignantly.

"As an educator and a parent?" the Doctor replied nonchalantly. "I grant that it's been a while since I was officially either, but some of us don't forget how to do these things."

"We shall see," Mr Hallow said, glaring at the Doctor a moment before he turned to Miss Cackle. "I shall expect to hear from Ethel as soon as she returns; I don't want another traumatised daughter courtesy of Cackle's-"

"Actually, Esmerelda seems to be coping with her experiences fairly well; the only thing troubling her is the lack of support she's received since," the Doctor cut the elder Hallow off.

"And as for _this_ woman-" Mr Hallow began.

"Doctor Tempora is here as my guest rather than as a member of staff, so her opinions in no way reflect the official opinions of this school, but she will remain as long as she wishes to," Miss Cackle informed the man firmly, even as she shot a brief glance at the Doctor. "Her methods are… unconventional, but I trust her completely."

"As though _that_ should be a recommendation for anything," Mr Hallow said, shooting another glare at the Doctor before turning to his eldest daughter. "Come on, Esmerelda; goodbye, Sybil."

As the two sisters exchanged sad smiles, Mr Hallow clicked his fingers and a broomstick appeared in the air beside him, while he leaned threateningly over Miss Cackle. "My wife will be very interested to know what's been going on around here."

"There's really nothing worth troubling her for," Miss Cackle said.

"You think so?" Mr Hallow responded disdainfully. " _Ha_! You haven't heard the last of this!"

With that grim statement, the man got back on the room and flew off into the sky, Esmerelda perched on the back of the broom.

"Esmerelda!" a young blond girl yelled as she ran onto the field wearing a grey cloak, looking urgently after the departing broomstick. "Wait! Wait! No! Please wait! Come back! Esmerelda!"

"It's going to be all right, Ethel," Sybil said to the girl who had to be her other sister. "Esme's going to be OK in the non-magical world."

"I needed to see her," the young woman said, looking sadly after her sister and father. "I could've helped her!"

She turned to glare at Mildred, who had been running after the blond with a couple of other girls. "This is your fault, Mildred Hubble! If we'd left when I said-"

"You can't _know_ that, actually," the Doctor cut in, looking pointedly at Ethel.

"What?" Ethel looked at the Doctor, clearly taken aback at the presence of this unknown woman. "Who are-?"

"Doctor Myrlina Tempora," the Doctor smiled (she really was becoming fond of this alias; it was just a pity she'd never be able to use it often). "And having met Mildred Hubble, I feel safe assuming that she wouldn't delay you coming back to Cackle's unless there was a _very_ good reason for it, so in the end there's no reason for _anyone_ to be angry for making you miss an opportunity you didn't even know would be there."

"And what would _you_ know about-?" Ethel began.

"Doctor Tempora knows a great deal more about lost chances than any witch of my acquaintance, Ethel," Miss Cackle said, looking solemnly at the young witch. "I can acknowledge your anger, but understand this; attempting to blame Mildred for missing this chance to meet with Esmerelda is unfair when she couldn't have known that your sister was even here."

"E…exactly," Mildred said, smiling gratefully at the Doctor before she turned to Ethel. "I _am_ sorry about that, Ethel, but I… well, I didn't make you late on _purpose_ -"

Ethel snorted in exasperation and stormed off into the castle, leaving Mildred to smile awkwardly but thankfully at the Doctor before a young dark-skinned girl with her hair in two small bunches ran up to Mildred and a chubby girl in glasses.

"Millie, Maud!" the girl grinned, giving the two an enthusiastic hug before stepping back. "I've been stock-taking all day! It was _awful_!"

"You didn't have any trouble, Miss Mould?" Miss Cackle asked the other woman.

"We had a very productive trip," Miss Mould nodded. "All ingredients collected and some wonderful sketches…"

"You've drawn a creature that's been extinct for over a century!" Miss Cackle noted, seeing what appeared to be a particularly vividly-coloured butterfly in Miss Mould's sketchbook. "What a vivid imagination you must have! Good job you didn't bump into one."

"Nothing that a brace, clever and brilliant witch couldn't have gotten us out of," Miss Mould smiled thoughtfully at Mildred, prompting similar grins from Mildred and the girl who was apparently Maud.

"My sentiments exactly," the Doctor nodded, looking after Mildred with an approving smile of her own. "You have a very resourceful student there, you know."

"Indeed," Miss Hardbroom said, looking at the Doctor with a renewed probing expression. "I was not aware that you had met Mildred Hubble?"

"We ran into each other when I arrived this morning and she was kind enough to let Miss Cackle know I'd arrived," the Doctor smiled, before turning to the new arrival. "Oh, forgot to introduce myself; I'm-"

"Doctor Myrlina Tempora; I heard," the woman smiled. "Miss Marigould Mould, art teacher; what are you a doctor of?"

"Pretty much everything you'd expect," the Doctor smiled, before she glanced at Miss Cackle. "But right now, I think we need to have a word with Mildred as soon as we can."

"You do?" Miss Hardbroom asked.

"Miss Cackle suggested and I agreed that Mildred would benefit from a meeting to discuss… certain details," the Doctor shrugged, her mind inwardly racing as she hoped she'd put together enough about this society so that her answers wouldn't sound too strange. "She has a great deal of talent but there are some background details that you all may have neglected to share with her so far and I'm… uniquely qualified to give her those answers."

"Really?" Miss Hardbroom looked sceptically at the Doctor.

"The Doctor has a unique perspective on many things that has allowed her to be of great benefit in moments of crisis on several occasions," Miss Cackle explained. "She has had a rough few days before coming here, but I can assure you that, regardless of what you might think, she is well-suited to answer any questions from Mildred."

The other two teachers looked at the Doctor with a slightly sceptical expression, but it was mixed with a new sense of respect at the evidently high opinion Miss Cackle had for this mysterious woman.

 _I just hope I_ can _answer all of Mildred's questions_ …

* * *

AN: On the topic of Mildred's questions, does anyone have anything they'd specifically like our favourite 'worst witch' to ask the Doctor about the existence of aliens, time travel, and Miss Cackle's true history that hasn't been addressed already?


	7. The Final Questions

Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ belongs to the BBC and _Worst Witch_ belongs to Jill Murphy; you know the drill

Feedback: Always appreciated

AN: The final chapter of this story; I wanted to get this storyline finished before the new series started and we saw what the Thirteenth Doctor is like for real.

Anyway, hope you've liked this little crossover.

The Great Doctor

"Ah, Mildred," Miss Cackle smiled, looking in approval at the young witch as she walked into the headmistress's office. "I apologise that we had to skim over it earlier, but I trust that the trip to Hollow Wood was satisfactory?"

"It was… interesting," Mildred nodded. "I mean, there was a brief encounter with a… hypno-pillion?"

"That was real?" the Doctor looked curiously at the young brunette. "And you dealt with it?"

"Found the counter-spell and… well, took it from there," Mildred shrugged in her usual self-effacing manner.

"Good for you," the Doctor smiled, Miss Cackle nodding in approval even as she stayed behind her desk. "Always impressive when you deal with the unexpected twists."

"…Thank you?" Mildred shrugged uncertainly at the headmistress. "Actually, Miss Cackle, I was just… I mean, I'm grateful that you're going to answer my questions, but won't HB… well, won't she wonder about this? I mean, the way she was looking at the Doctor…"

"I can deal with Hecate's questions in their own time, Mildred," Miss Cackle said reassuringly. "Give me time to come up with a suitable explanation and I can assure her that no slight was intended, and in a worst-case scenario… well, I don't like to use it under normal circumstances, but memory-dust will deal with things."

"Net result is that you need to let us worry about how certain parties will react and you just focus on satisfying your curiosity," the Doctor grinned.

"Right…" Mildred said, looking uncertainly between the two women before her mind seized on the most confusing term of the morning's conversation. "So… well, I had a bit of time to think, and the thing I don't get the most is… well, why were you falling through the air like that?"

"Fell out of my time machine," the Doctor shrugged. "It happens."

"You fell out of your time machine?"

"The old girl had a bit of a breakdown after I regenerated and needed to get me out of her while she repaired herself," the Doctor clarified. "Drastic way of doing things, but she didn't have much of an alternative; I let off a _lot_ of energy last time and it really threw things off inside her."

"You mean… you let off a lot of energy when you… changed?" Mildred said, indicating the Doctor uncertainly. "I mean… you mentioned that regeneration process, and you said you were a man before…"

"True, but the actual process is extremely complicated to describe even for us, and if you're thinking of asking me about the differences between the genders, don't bother," the Doctor shrugged. "It's too early in this body for me to give you any clear answers on that front; obviously I'm feeling a bit top-heavy all of a sudden, and this new body seems a bit light between the legs, but nothing obvious beyond that apart from stuff that could be put down to me finding my feet in this new body."

"I… see," Mildred said, deciding that she didn't want to ask for any more on that particular topic; there was idle curiosity, and there was risking getting an in-depth explanation on what it felt like to have a… _thing_ versus not having one. "So… talking of unusual terms… what were you talking about when you mentioned a Valeyard?"

"To give you the appropriate context, it was the name assumed by the individual who was the manifestation of all the evil that exists within the Doctor," Miss Cackle clarified.

"Manifestation of…" Mildred began uncertainly. "You mean… he was like Mr Hyde?"

"Good analogy," the Doctor smiled grimly. "And the basic principle's pretty apt; from everything I've learned about him, the Valeyard was the manifestation of my dark side."

"Barring the fact that the Valeyard and the Doctor were physically separate entities instead of them alternating control of the body as one turned into the other," Miss Cackle pointed out. "The Valeyard's exact origins are unclear to us even now, but all sources agree that he came from the Doctor's future, created under undisclosed circumstances, who travelled into the past to use his knowledge of the Doctor to benefit his own efforts to take the Doctor's life for himself."

"He… wanted the Doctor's life?" Mildred said uncertainly. "But… if he was from the Doctor's _future_ … and he killed the Doctor _now_ …"

"He was evil, ambitious, and utterly insane; it's not a good combination even if you aren't as brilliant as me," the Doctor clarified. "Add in our ability to travel in time, and… well, let's just say I have a feeling that his arrogance is the only reason I'm still here."

"His arrogance?"

"He needed to let me know he was winning," the Doctor said, a solemn expression on her face. "Sometimes that's all the time you need to turn things against your enemy."

"Indeed," Miss Cackle said, smiling slightly in acknowledgement at the Doctor before looking back at Mildred. "In any case, during my last regeneration, I essentially triggered a similar split to the one that may have created the Valeyard to create Agatha, while also ensuring that she and I would regenerate into children rather than remaining the age we are and suppressing our memories into the bargain in the process."

"You did?" Mildred looked at Miss Cackle in surprise. "Why?"

"To see if I could change her," Miss Cackle said, suddenly looking particularly weary at that confession. "It was the kind of arrogant mistake you can only make when you have had centuries of being right behind you and think you can achieve something impossible just because you want to believe it's impossible for everyone else…"

"You know, I _do_ get that I made a mistake the last time I was home; you don't have to rub it in," the Doctor smiled at the headmistress in an exaggeratedly exasperated manner.

"OK…" Mildred said, aware that there were several questions in that last statement but reluctant to ask any of them right now; if Miss Cackle was as old as the Doctor, Mildred suddenly doubted she could ever fully understand the motives for some of the things that might have prompted such a comment. "So does that mean Agatha's… is she more like your clone than your sister?"

"Not exactly," Miss Cackle replied. "Agatha basically _is_ my sister, in that we were distinct personalities from the beginning but were genetically identical; she just… had greater potential to go the other way than I did."

"She did? But… when I went through the Mists, _you_ were-"

"She was the focus of my darker instincts; that did not mean I had none myself," Miss Cackle clarified.

"That was one of the reasons I've always had trouble with the idea of the Valeyard," the Doctor put in, the other woman now sitting on the edge of the desk as she looked thoughtfully between Mildred and Miss Cackle. "When you see the worst of yourself in physical form, it can be… difficult… to recognise the difference between the need to do what that part of yourself is capable of, and the idea that you could enjoy what that part of you is capable of."

"Pardon?"

"I have promised myself and the universe that I will never be cruel or cowardly," the Doctor said, her tone solemn as she looked at the young girl. "The Valeyard represents the part of me that lets me be cruel when I am certain that I have no other choice but to break that promise, but he lacks the part of me that understands when I _can't_ do something."

"Uh… what do you mean?" Mildred asked, uncertain if she wanted to hear the answer to this question even as she knew she had to ask it.

"There are times when I have to kill people," the Doctor said bluntly. "I would always make that my last option… but the Valeyard would not only make it his first as soon as it occurred to him, but he would enjoy doing it because that is what he is."

"Ah," Mildred nodded, looking uncomfortably around herself before she decided to ask a less morally conflicting question. "So… if magic is real… how can _aliens_ be real too?"

"Oh, the one doesn't preclude the other, Mildred," Miss Cackle smiled. "It's just that magic is… well…"

"To put it in a related context, you're aware of the basic idea of three dimensions of space, right?" the Doctor put in.

"You mean… length, breadth and width, right?"

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded. "Anyway, there's also the fourth dimension of time, which you obviously know of but can't travel through on your own, and the fifth dimension, which is what we call the Time Vortex; it's what allows our people to travel in time in our time machines."

"OK…" Mildred nodded uncertainly.

"Magic and such powers are essentially the ability to access the higher six dimensions of reality that exist beyond the fifth dimension of the Time Vortex," the Doctor continued. "Not everyone can do it, of course, but those with the right physical and psychological potential are able to tap that power and use it on our level, utilising those powers to accomplish feats that should be impossible on our level."

"Our level?" Mildred asked.

"Think of it as though we were simply drawings on a piece of paper," Miss Cackle explained. "We would be flat beings with no concept of height or anything beyond the ability to go left or right, without even an understanding of the _concept_ of up or down; if someone came along who could lift us up, we wouldn't even understand such a thing was possible."

"I… see," Mildred nodded. "So… magic is just us drawing power from these higher dimensions of reality?"

"Basically, yes," the Doctor nodded. "You get the ability to do things that shouldn't be possible from your perspective, but from the higher dimensions it's really pretty simple."

"I… _think_ I get it…" Mildred nodded tentatively. "So… it's like that thing I heard Arthur C. Clarke write? There's no real difference between science and magic when you get to a certain point?"

"Always liked that view," the Doctor nodded.

"OK… so I've been getting a bit of an idea on how things work in the world of magic compared to… well, stuff I'd read before… but how do things work… out there?" Mildred asked. "I mean, _Star Trek_ and _Star Wars_ … how do they compare to what's really in space?"

"Take out the Force, the lightsabers, and the lack of currency for the Federation and you're basically there," the Doctor replied. "Obviously it changes depending on what time period I'm visiting, but generally you'll find an interesting mix of people trying to get along and the particularly aggravating races who just think everything would be better if they were in charge or everyone else was dead."

"Ah," Mildred said.

"Which is one reason the Doctor works with UNIT, I believe?" Miss Cackle smiled.

"UNIT?"

"Unified Intelligence Taskforce," the Doctor grinned. "Set up in the 1970s by an old friend of mine, UNIT is basically responsible for dealing with alien incursions in this part of the world; America's done its share, of course, but their anti-alien groups tend to be more about just blowing things up where UNIT's been willing to let me talk things over a bit more recently."

"Oh," Mildred said. "So the government _does_ know about aliens?"

"Certain government officials, anyway," the Doctor clarified. "Obviously not everyone can know everything, but the right people know enough to know that there are things out there to beware of, as well as people like me to help protect them."

"Uh… that reminds me," Mildred said, pausing in thought for a moment. "What you said earlier about knowledge being spread out… what was all that stuff you were saying earlier about someone called Sabbath?"

"Complicated," the Doctor and Miss Cackle replied simultaneously.

"Essentially," the Doctor continued, "at one point, when my people were… cut off from the wider universe, knowledge of subjects such as magic that we had kept suppressed for millennia was able to escape into the wider universe. For a time, as I was the only one of our people still available to take action, I tried to organise the new holders of such knowledge so that they could protect the universe in our absence, but that effort was interrupted by a man called Sabbath, who thought that he was a better candidate for acting as Time's Champion than I was."

"Did he ever give a clear reason for that?" Miss Cackle asked. "I heard about the mistakes Sabbath made later on in your encounters with him, and I understand why you had to oppose him beyond the moral issues, but I was never really clear on why he thought he was better than you…"

"He had these ideas about how Time worked that didn't actually match the reality of it," the Doctor said. "He thought time travellers created alternate timelines rather than time being a relatively fixed constant, and hence saw me as a disruptive influence who just made reality worse every time I went anywhere."

"I… see," Mildred said. "And time doesn't work like that?"

"Let's just say it takes a lot of effort to make time split in the way he was worried about and leave it at that; further details would just be confusing without an in-depth knowledge of temporal mechanics."

"I get it," Mildred nodded in understanding. "So… What happened to Sabbath?"

"It turned out that he was being manipulated by another group who had their own agenda regarding the structure of reality," the Doctor explained. "Once his masters' true goal was revealed, he sacrificed himself to deliver a significant blow against them, and that disrupted their plans so that they ran out of power."

"Right…" Mildred nodded. "So when you said your people were cut off… does that tie into why you said something about needing to bring your people back after you lost your memory?"

"Good memory, Mildred," the Doctor nodded at the young girl before her expression became more solemn. "That was… a difficult period of my life; let's just leave it at that."

"Of course," Mildred smiled at the older woman in sympathetic understanding, recognising the signs of a potentially difficult topic, before another thought suddenly came to her. "Hold on; if magic's all about the higher dimensions, where do the founding stones fit into this?"

"It channels the raw energy of the magic and filters it in a manner that will allow the students here to properly process it," the headmistress explained. "Essentially, we use ancient technology to act as conduits to the higher dimensions that give us magic."

"Technology?" Mildred repeated in surprise. "Witches were able to make technology back when Cackle's was built?"

"In a loose sense," Miss Cackle confirmed. "The process of creating a founding stone is… well, suffice to say, the ancient witches knew many secrets that even my sisterhood have yet to fully unlock even after this long."

"Something to look into in the future, anyway," the Doctor noted with a smile, before her expression faltered. "But that depends on me getting the old girl back…"

"And that is where we come in," Miss Cackle smiled, looking at Mildred before turning to the Doctor. "I assume you still have your key on you if nothing else?"

"Right here," the Doctor confirmed, pulling what looked like a standard Yale key out of a pocket.

"That's the key to… your time machine?" Mildred looked at it in surprise.

"Nothing wrong with keeping things simple," the Doctor smiled, looking at the key with an affectionate smile. "I've tried a more exotic-looking key, but there's something to be said for simplicity."

"In any case," Miss Cackle said, "regardless of its appearance, it retains a link to the Doctor's ship, which the three of us can use to bring the TARDIS to this office once it has finished rebuilding itself."

"Will it be ready by now?" Mildred asked.

"It's a time machine, Mildred; we give the old girl a time and place, and she can be back here as soon as she's ready even if it took her centuries to regenerate," the Doctor smiled. "Admittedly, last time I did something like this I tried using block transfer computations and made a few mistakes, but-"

"We shall be fine, Doctor," Miss Cackle said reassuringly before she turned to Mildred. "If you would take our hands, Mildred?"

"Our?" the Doctor looked at the headmistress in surprise.

"You have the same degree of magical potential as any Time Lord if you learnt to channel your mind appropriately, Doctor; you simply lack the natural mental focus to achieve it on your own outside of exceptional circumstances," Miss Cackle explained.

"Like how I had to learn it?" Mildred asked.

"Essentially," Miss Cackle nodded.

"I don't have the time to spend the next few decades learning how to get my mind thinking the right way-"

"Simply reflect on your past instruction and that will suffice, I am sure," Miss Cackle smiled. "I trust you remember Odoyle's lessons if nothing else?"

"Odoyle?"

"A leprechaun who gave me some interesting lessons in his world's equivalent of magic a long time ago," the Doctor smiled, as she accepted the offered hands of the other two women. "Let's see how this goes…"

"Simply focus on your link to the ship, Doctor, and I shall reach out to it," Miss Cackle said, smiling reassuringly at Mildred. "As for you, Mildred, just think of Earth."

"Earth?" Mildred repeated.

"The Sisterhood have been able to summon the TARDIS to us when on our homeworld, and in this case we have the additional asset of the Doctor's link to the ship to draw on," Miss Cackle explained. "You will provide a tie to this planet that will ensure where and when the ship will return to us, while the Doctor focuses on the ship and I instigate the transfer itself."

"Right," Mildred nodded, taking a deep breath as she settled back and tried to focus her thoughts on anything Earth-related that she could think of; the sights from her various holidays with her mum, some of the locations she'd flown to while practising her broomstick work, just spending time with her friends…

She didn't know how to define the subsequent surge of power, but for a moment, Mildred felt like she had access to all the raw potential she'd only been peripherally aware of when she was in the presence of the founding stone, followed by a strange wheezing, groaning sound that she couldn't identify. As the moment passed, Mildred opened her eyes to find herself staring at a large blue box that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, which put her in mind of a public phone box, except that it was blue rather than red and only had a few windows at the top rather than several windows all over the doors and walls.

"Are you… sure about this?" Mildred asked, looking sceptically at the blue box as she released her grip on the hands of the other two women. "That… doesn't look like a time machine…"

"Oh, she'll surprise you," the Doctor smiled, standing up and patting the box affectionately as she looked at Mildred. "I'd invite you along-"

" _No_."

"Pardon?" the Doctor looked at Miss Cackle in surprise.

"Mildred is a _child_ , Doctor," Miss Cackle said firmly. "An unconventionally talented girl, to be sure, but she is still a child; she will _not_ be leaving the planet to go off… Rassilon only knows where with you!"

"As I was about to say, I _have_ learned from past experience not to allow anyone on board full-time if they're too young," the Doctor noted, before looking back at Mildred with an apologetic expression. "It's not that you don't have the right potential, but I'd just worry too much about you at this point even if I was fully confident in my new identity."

"It's… all right," Mildred shrugged, uncertain how to feel about Miss Cackle's defence and the Doctor's own dismissal. "I'd… probably just do something stupid anyway…"

"And why would you think that?" the Doctor looked at Mildred with a soft smile. "Because you have some trouble with your spells? Well, there's a saying that I feel is appropriate here; if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it's going to spend its life thinking it's an idiot."

"So?"

"So don't think of yourself as stupid just because you take longer to master new spells than certain other people in your year," the Doctor said, crouching down slightly to look Mildred reassuringly in the eyes. "Considering that you're starting from scratch where everyone else has been receiving _some_ kind of training from their parents before coming here, from what I've heard from Ohila here, I think you're doing rather well. Besides, academics mean little in the long run; take it from the man- sorry, _woman_ \- who only scored 51% on the second attempt of my _final_ exams."

"Really?" Mildred asked, looking at the Doctor in surprise.

"Of course," the Doctor shrugged. "Academics are important, I grant you, but you shouldn't get so caught up in striving to get them that you miss out on what really matters. Besides, from what Ohila tells me, you've got what matters most in the world; the mind that can improvise when put on the spot, unlike certain people who shall remain nameless who think they're smart because they stick to the rules and focus on remembering raw facts over thinking about how to use them."

"…Thanks," Mildred said at last, smiling and giving the Doctor an impulsive hug.

"You're welcome," the Doctor said, returning the hug before stepping back and opening the door of the blue box, pausing to look at Mildred with an affectionate smile. "Just one last thing, Mildred."

"What?"

"When the stars are in the right place, listen carefully… and some day, before you're very much older, you might hear the answer to the greatest question in the universe."

With those final cryptic words, the Doctor closed the door behind her, followed by a repeat of the earlier wheezing, groaning sound as the light on the top glowed while the box itself faded away, leaving no trace of its presence.

"What did that mean?" Mildred looked curiously at Miss Cackle.

"A rumour I heard once," Miss Cackle smiled. "A rumour that, after so many centuries of secrecy, there will come a time and a place where, under the right circumstances, children whose hearts are in the right place can learn the answer to the First Question."

"The First Question?"

"The Question hidden in plain sight since the beginning of the universe, asked since the beginning of time and never truly answered," Miss Cackle explained, looking at Mildred with a soft smile. "Specifically, 'Doctor Who'?"

"'Doctor Who'?" Mildred repeated uncertainly, before the true implication of that statement hit her. "You mean… you don't know the Doctor's _name_?"

"Nobody does any more," Miss Cackle acknowledged. "There are rumours, of course, ranging from the Doctor adding syllables to her name to hide from Death to it simply being hard to pronounce in English or that the head of the Doctor's family disinherited the Doctor and decreed that the original name should never again be spoken, but in the end, we just don't _know_ what her name was before she adopted her title as her name, and it is unlikely she will tell anyone directly."

"But that rumour-?"

"Who can say?" Miss Cackle smiled. "As the Doctor has observed more than once, the day we know everything is the day we stop."

"Good point," Mildred said, smiling at the thought of being part of another secret world on top of the magic that had become part of her life since that fateful day Maud crashed into her balcony. "Do you think we'll see her again?"

"That's a hard question to answer, Mildred Hubble," Miss Cackle replied, looking at her young student with a slight smile. "But I can promise you this; if you need aid in the future, the Doctor will be an option for you to call on."

Looking at the place where the blue box had been, Mildred was suddenly struck by the thought that she had once again been exposed to a secret world that so few people truly knew about, this time a world of aliens and time travel on top of magic and witchcraft.

Her world had just become so much bigger than it had become even after her first meeting with Maud, but Mildred couldn't regret this strange sequence of events any more than she could regret meeting Maud in the first place.

Even if she never met the Doctor again, Mildred was certain she'd remember this moment for a very long time…


End file.
